Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-19 January 1547) was an English nobleman and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He was the son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and a prominent soldier, like his father and grandfather before him, but he was executed in 1547 after a paranoid King Henry VIII accused him of planning to attempt to usurp the throne from his son, the future King Edward VI of England.

Biography
Henry Howard was born in Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, England in 1516, the son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and Elizabeth Stafford. He was brought up at Windsor Castle with King Henry VIII's illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy, and he was good friends with FitzRoy; FitzRoy later married his sister. He was repeatedly imprisoned for his rash behavior, but he assumed the courtesy title "Earl of Surrey" in 1524 upon his grandfather's death.

Like his father and grandfather, he was an able soldier, and he served in Henry's French wars as Lieutenant-General of the King on Sea and Land. In the summer of 1540, Henry Howard and Thomas Seymour were sent to make a show of force against the French after the French garrison of Ardres rebuilt a bridge into the Pale of Calais that the English garrison of Guisnes had previously pulled down. The English and French became friendly after Howard and Seymour gave the French garrison gifts, and Howard succeeded in his mission. In 1547, however, King Henry - consumed by paranoia and increasing illness - came to believe that Howard was planning to usurp the throne from his young son, the future Edward VI of England. He had Howard beheaded in the Tower of London on 19 January 1547.